Junot Díaz
Dominican-American writer, academic, and editor / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Junot Díaz?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Junot Díaz (/ˈdʒuːnoʊ/; born December 31, 1968) is a Dominican-American[1] writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants.[2] Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.[3]
Junot Díaz | |
---|---|
Born | (1968-12-31) December 31, 1968 (age 55)[citation needed] Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic |
Occupation |
|
Education | |
Period | 1995–present |
Notable awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1999) National Book Critics Circle Award (2007) Pulitzer Prize (2008) MacArthur Fellowship (2012) Inducted into American Academy of Arts and Letters (2017) |
Website | |
junotdiaz |
Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Díaz migrated with his family to New Jersey when he was six years old. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University, and shortly after graduating created the character "Yunior", who served as narrator of several of his later books. After obtaining his MFA from Cornell University, Díaz published his first book, the 1995 short story collection Drown.
Diaz received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and received a MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant" in 2012.[4]